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Northwestern Wildcats Preview 2022: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the Northwestern season with what you need to know and keys to the season.
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Northwestern Wildcats Preview
Pat Fitzgerald: 109-90, 17th year at Northwestern
2021 Preview: Overall: 3-9, Conference: 1-8
Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Northwestern Top 10 Players
Northwestern Schedule & Analysis
Northwestern Wildcats Preview 2022
You try to figure out what Northwestern is going to do.
Miserable in 2019, it came back from a 3-9 season to go 7-2 with one of those losses to Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship.
Last year’s team was supposed to be better in a whole slew of ways, and …
Nope.
Very, very nope.
Bad defense, worse offense, and another 3-9 season with a team that didn’t score more than 14 points in any of the six games and in seven of the last eight. So of course …
Book tickets for Indianapolis in early December.
Pat Fitzgerald had two straight 5-7 seasons in 2013 and 2014, and that’s been the only time in 16 years the program that was once synonymous with losing had two straight losing seasons.
This year’s team has the experience to be better, but the execution has to be there and the style has to work.
Northwestern has to make teams play its style, and that only works if the defense is great because …
Northwestern Wildcats Preview 2022: Offense
The Northwestern is the Northwestern offense. It’s not like the 2018 version that went to the Big Ten Championship lit it up, and the 2020 O only scored more than 28 in the opener and the bowl game.
For this all to work, the offense has to hit its third down conversions (it didn’t), it can’t turn the ball over (not even close), and the passing game has to be efficient (nyuh-uh). However …
This year’s offensive line should be a positive. Four starters are expected back around terrific left tackle Peter Skoronski, and there’s a little bit of depth to play around with. The running game that averaged 144 yards per game now has to do more.
The Wildcats ripped up Ohio and Indiana State on the ground, and that was about it. The 2020 version wasn’t great, but the 3.74 yards per carry were actually slightly more than they came up with in 2020. The combination of Evan Hull and Andrew Clair are experienced enough to be at least as good as last year.
The Wildcats couldn’t settle on a quarterback, and now it’s down to two. Hunter Johnson went back to Clemson, and Andrew Marty is done, but former South Carolina starter Ryan Hilinski and redshirt freshman Brendan Sullivan will keep battling it out through fall camp.
No. 2 receiver Malik Washington caught 44 passes for 578 yards and two scores, but the Wildcats need more downfield playmakers. Hull will make a slew of catches out of the backfield.
Overall, here’s the part that gets lost over the years. Even when Northwestern is winning the offense isn’t any good. That’s sort of part of the deal and the style – in a weird way – however …
Northwestern Wildcats Preview 2022: Defense
Northwestern can’t win unless the defense is great. The 2020 version allowed just 4.86 yards per play, and the program hadn’t given up more than five yards per snap since allowing 6.13 in 2011. Last year? 6.15 yards per play.
The defense didn’t generate any pressure, was the second worst in the Big Ten overall, and was totally miserable against the run with the worst production in the conference. Unfortunately, this might take a little more work.
The Wildcats have a great one in Bryce Gallagher in the middle of the linebacking corps, but 141-tackle Chris Bergin is gone from the outside. It’s Northwestern – Pat Fitzgerald’s linebackers are going to be great – but there could be a learning curve.
The defensive front is also undergoing an overhaul. Adetomiwa Adebawore is a good veteran pass rusher, but the tackles are coming from the transfer portal. Taishan Holmes (UMass), Ryan Johnson (Stanford), and Henrik Barndt (Indiana State) had better be great, or this will be a long season.
The secondary lost a future NFL starter in safety Brandon Joseph. Two problems: 1) Northwestern only came up with six interceptions and 2) none of those are coming back – Joseph led the team with two.
He’s off to Notre Dame, but the other three starters should be back including good tackler Coco Azema at the other safety spot and the corner tandem of Cameron Mitchell and AJ Hampton.
Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Northwestern Top 10 Players
Northwestern Schedule & Analysis
Northwestern Wildcats: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats NEXT
Northwestern Wildcats: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats
Northwestern Wildcats: Key To The 2022 Offense
The passing game can’t be completely miserable.
Again – and this can’t be stressed enough – Northwestern’s offense isn’t all that great even in the best of times.
There usually isn’t any sort of explosiveness, but when everything is right, it’s an opportunistic attack that gets the job done, controls the game, and it dominates the tempo.
It’s about when the passing game works as much as how much it cranks up. When it’s as bad as it was last year, the whole machine shuts down.
Last year’s offense gave up 14 interceptions, threw just 13 touchdown passes, and completed a mere 57% of its passes with 5.8 yards per throw.
The quarterbacks don’t have to be Bryce Young, but they have to push past 60%, average more than six yards per pass, and keep the interceptions to a bare minimum. That’s all it needs to do.
Northwestern Wildcats: Key To The 2022 Defense
The run defense can’t be completely miserable.
It should’ve worked. Last year’s defense was loaded with veterans from the 2020 version, especially on the front seven. Instead of being a brick wall, it had the resistance of a warm bowl of oatmeal.
Northwestern had the worst run defense in the Big Ten and ranked 119th in the country. For a team that relies on controlling the pace and the clock, getting moved on at will was devastating.
The D allowed more than 200 rushing yards a whopping seven times, gave up more than 300 to Michigan State and Minnesota, and got obliterated by Nebraska for 427 and seven touchdowns.
Pat Fitzgerald’s defense went from 2015 to 2019 without allowing more than four yards per carry. Without longtime defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz, last year’s bunch allowed 5.33 yards per pop and 31 touchdowns.
That’s why …
Northwestern Wildcats: Key Player To The 2022 Season
DT Taishan Holmes, Sr.
This is also Key Transfer: Part One.
Let’s be honest here among friends. Your defensive tackle situation probably isn’t in great shape if you’re relying on a key part of a run defense that was even worse than the Big Ten’s worst run D.
However, the 6-3, 315-pound Holmes is big, strong, and takes up lots of space. He made 17 tackles with 1.5 tackles for loss in seven games at UMass, and now he needs to be a key part of the run defense as he holds up on the nose.
He’s not alone to try fixing the glitch. There’s also …
Northwestern Wildcats: Key Transfer
DT Ryan Johnson, Sr.
Key Transfer: Part Two.
Northwestern really needs to fix the interior of the defensive line.
Out of the four main tackles from last year, three are done and Te-rah Edwards took his talents to the University of Illinois.
There’s Holmes, Indiana State transfer Henric Barndt, and the 6-4, 274-pound Johnson, a transfer from Stanford who made 32 tackles in his 15 games or work over four years.
Non one’s expecting sensational out of this bunch. Just hold up.
Northwestern Key Game To The 2022 Season
Nebraska, Aug. 27
It’s in Dublin, Ireland, and it might just make-or-break the season for both teams.
Nebraska desperately needs a hot start, and Northwestern needs to shake off the yuck from 2021 – including the 56-7 disaster against the Huskers – with a win.
Take down the Huskers, and with a week off and then Duke, Southern Illinois, and Miami University to follow – all at home – it’s possible to come up with more wins before October 1st than the team had all of last year.
Northwestern Wildcats: 2021 Fun Stats
– First Half Scoring: Opponents 208 – Northwestern 97
– Field Goals: Opponents 17-of-23 – Northwestern 6-of-13
– Penalties: Opponents 72 for 614 yards – Northwestern 57 for 508 yards
Offense, Defense Breakdown
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Northwestern Top 10 Players
Northwestern Schedule & Analysis
Northwestern Wildcats Season Prediction, What Will Happen NEXT
Northwestern Wildcats Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Almost everything has to be perfect for Northwestern to be great.
It has to win the turnover battle, control the clock, keep games close and relatively low scoring and …
The rest of the Big Ten has to be bad.
Getting annihilated by Nebraska and Illinois last year wasn’t okay, but unlike 2020 when so many teams were down, Northwestern’s style didn’t take over partly because Michigan State, Wisconsin, Purdue, and Iowa were better than the previous versions.
Even so, last year’s team should’ve been it. It was full of upperclassmen, extra year seniors, and had more than enough depth to come up with a few options, and it all fell flat.
That doesn’t mean Northwestern under Pat Fitzgerald can’t go Northwestern under Pat Fitzgerald and pull out something special out of nowhere.
Set The Northwestern Wildcats Regular Season Win Total At … 5
Duke, Southern Illinois, Miami University. Over the years – even in big seasons – Northwestern will occasionally gack away an easy home game, but those should be three wins in the bank.
If this is going to be any sort of a bounce-back season, beating Illinois at home is a must, and there has to be a crazy victory somewhere in there – like Wisconsin doing what it normally does in Evanston and turn the ball over 14 times.
No, it won’t be a third trip to the Big Ten Championship in five years, and it’s going to take a slew of crazy things just to go bowling, but crazy things when no one is expecting them – for good and for bad – is what this program does.
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Northwestern Top 10 Players
Northwestern Schedule & Analysis
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